Arson and Laughter
by TheStrangestLittleOreo
Summary: She's beauty, she's grace, she'll burn off and eat the ashes of your face, it's everybody's favorite right-hand woman Fire Hazard! And whether you like her or not, the world(?) is gonna know her behind the scenes!
1. In which an explosion is heard

The first thing that was on Theodora's mind was that she was bored.

She didn't know why, exactly. She had plenty of stuff on her platter already: Peeping around town for gossip material, attending to the Southern Coven as Head Witch, making profit off of selling blackmail material to various people, heck, she even had to pay taxes thanks to her constantly drunk mother. All that should have given her a tight schedule, not to mention all the homework she neglected constantly.

Unfortunately, today was one of _those_ days. The days when the teachers gave no homework, which was a good thing for everyone. But also one of those days when nothing interesting happened. No new embarrassing secrets to hold over people's heads, and no customers who were interested in buying some from her. Today was also a Wednesday, which was bad because the Coven met up every other day, so she didn't have any meetings to worry about. The taxes were payed last Sunday, and her mom was in the police station's miniature jail for a few days so she didn't have any messes to clean up at home.

Those days were they type where she was bored out of her mind, like right now, while lounging on a park bench.

"Of all days, this one had to come on my bloody doorstep," she grumbled to herself, "why couldn't it be something like a zombie apocalypse or a terrorist attack?"

Watching people do their thing in the park was the only reason why she hadn't succumbed to existential madness, and lucky for her there were at least five or six toddlers, all running around at the playground while their parents sat nearby, chatting and letting their kids run free.

"_Lucky bastards,"_ she thought, _"they don't know what it's like to be truly bored out of your mind."_

She was about to doze off when, lo and behold, something interesting finally happened:

An explosion.

It seemed to be a big one, too, judging by the glow of orange from the treetops and how a chunk of charred metal clanged right in the middle of the basketball court, but the booming noise was what really got their attention. The toddlers, who were all laughing a second ago, were now screaming, and their parents had gone to screaming as well, just nowhere near as loud as them. Theodora's eyes widened and she hopped off the bench, whipping around to see where the source of the explosion was while they ran off. It was at the direction of the U-Stor-it.

She smiled. It was about time.

VVV

"Chaos wins once again!" a Chaos minion crowed as he and a whole gang of them emerged from the burning storage facility.

Ever since their boss had received a massive loan from a new financial backer, (whose name I will not mention for the sake of spoilers) they had moved to a larger base, which was an abandoned warehouse. New gadgets and such were purchased for the base, and so he had allowed his minions to do whatever they pleased with the old base, which was the U-Stor-It.

And they decided that this meant they were allowed to blow it up when they were finished looting it.

They were all laughing and talking about the stuff they had stolen. One of them had a crateful of grenades that he had discovered in Jimbo's storage unit, and had taken it with him after pausing to call his boss about how they should get more weapons from Jimbo's later. The idea was taken up, and he was bragging about how he had possibly gotten them a free pass for actual guns. He was in the middle of reaching in to grab a grenade when a hooded figure stepped in front of the group.

"Excuse me?" the figure asked, decidedly a girl from the voice alone, "Were you the ones who made this explosion?" The lead minion, some kid wearing tinfoil goggles on his neck, scoffed. "Yeah we were! Why, you gonna call the cops on us?"

The girl shook her head. "Nope," she answered, and she turned to observe the flames curling upwards the late afternoon sky. They stood there dumbfounded. With the rise of superheroes at its prime, they were expecting her to be another one of those pathetic justice lovers, but she didn't seem to want to report them. In fact, she actually seemed like a kindred villainess, with the way that her dark gray jacket's hood draped over her and the way that her scarlet curls seemed to boast ego. The dark green lenses of her thick goggles gleamed with a mysterious shimmer.

She hummed, and turned back to them, her face partially obscured by the hood and her massive curls. "Is this the biggest one you've caused so far in your career?"

They all looked at each other, some with worry. "...Yes? Why?" Another minion asked, and the girl laughed. "You _really_ call that _big_? Even a Nigerian cripple can do better!" She spread her arms apart, as if to show an example of its appropriate size. "And bigger is _always_ better!"

"So? You're saying that a _girl_ can do better?" The lead minion scoffed again, clearly not sensing the danger behind her. "How can we believe what a _ginger girl_ says?"

As if to serve as a reply, she snapped her fingers, and a bright orange flame sparked into existence, fluttering over her fingers.

The gang of minions stood there, dumbfounded as she aimed and tossed the little flame into the burning mess, like a basketball player. Their eyes somehow managed to follow the tiny spark, as it seemed to glow brighter than all the flames put together.

The spark disappeared amongst the fire, and when she snapped her fingers again, another explosion, powerful enough to demolish all the storage units near the center boomed. The sound was tremendous, like a horde of elephants trampling an army on a field of mines, and not only was it loud enough to alarm cars from the faraway neighborhoods, but it also created a mushroom cloud the size of a two-story house.

They all stood there, gaping like idiots as scraps of concrete, metal, and even still-burning wood flew everywhere. They were lucky that all of that somehow missed them by an inch. The girl, smirking with the satisfaction of proving them wrong, stood where she was as an umbrella of fire protected her from any debris. Metal melted into slag, concrete boiled away into nothingness, and wood was instantly reverted to ashes.

Once the worst of the debris rain was over, which took around three minutes, she flicked her hand to dispose of the umbrella and the two forces turned back once more to look at each other; the Chaos minions, who were now terrified and certain that she was secretly a demon, and the girl, who seemed to not care at all. "So?" She asked, "whaddya think?"

They all screamed and started to run to a tinfoil-covered truck, where an immigrant minion was at the wheel silently cursing in Spanish. They piled into the back, yammering about how she was going for their skins, and the truck drove off like the end of the world was at hand.

She stood there, mouth open, for what felt like forever.

The first thing that finally came out of her mouth was: "Assholes!"


	2. In which she does something violent

VWeek after encounter with Chaos minions.V

Today was just the third day of recruitment for Professor Chaos' army of minions at the South Park Mall's parking lot, and he could already see that the line was twice the length of yesterday's line.

Which had been twice the length of the day before's.

"Next!" he called out as General Disarray aggressively scribbled down the previous applicant's approval form onto a notepad. A trio of boys, all of them ginger, came up and gave a short explanation as to why they should have them.

Their reasons were the same as every other ginger at the lair: they were sick of being bullied around and wanted to strike back against them. Eventually, through word of mouth in the ginger community, they heard that Professor Chaos was recruiting for his expanding army of minions, and since he stated that he wasn't nitpicky, they wanted to join his cause.

He managed to fake a smile and told Disarray to approve them as well. They were then waved off to the direction of the base by older minions to begin training and they walked away.

As soon as they were gone his smile collapsed and he collapsed on one of the foldable chairs they had brought along. "Geez, I've forgotten about how tiring this was!" he said, tired from only about thirty minutes of interviews.

"Uh, we still got people here," Disarray pointed out, clearly noticing that the line was growing again. Chaos groaned, and, grabbing a cup of over sweetened coffee from the table, got back up to continue his work.

It took the both of them to get through almost all the volunteers. Most of them had practically the same stories, so they waved them in with no problem. Some were nutcases. They were shooed away. Some were even bigger nutcases who thought they had powers but were really delusional idiots who were merely lucky by coincidence.

They allowed their immigrant minions to do whatever they please with those guys.

After hours and hours of dealing with hordes of rather bland characters, (plus one lunch mishap where a crazy mom ended up being blasted out of a Starbucks cafe's window) Professor Chaos took one well-needed sigh of relief. "Thank God that's over! I didn't know we'd have so much trouble this time around..."

While they were busy calling over minions from the base to pick them up and managing whatever, they failed to notice a figure walking up to them.

A familiar, hooded figure.

"... And not to mention, we might need more tinfoil for all the uniforms being made!" he continued, packing up the papers into a cardboard box. General Disarray nodded, not really listening. Chaos sighed, closing the box and shooting his fellow villain a smile. "But at least with this much progress, we don't have to worry 'bout Eric no more, right?"

That was when he noticed that Disarray wasn't looking at him.

"... Um, General? What're you-"

"You guys still hiring?" A voice asked and Chaos screamed, tiny electric sparks shooting across his gloves. His head nearly broke off his neck as he quickly looked behind him to see a girl in a hoodie looking at the both of them. Her curly red hair peeked out of the hood and was fluttering in the slight breeze, her eyes hidden behind a thick pair of green goggles, and the fact that her face betrayed no extreme emotion (at least, not yet) made him a little nervous. What made him a lot more nervous, though, was the fact that she was also black.

Not for racist reasons, of course. Sorry. It was just that there was only one person in town who had both dark skin and red, curly hair.

"Theodora?" he squeaked, not quite believing this particular sight. The girl, looking a little annoyed, sighed. "I decide to dye my hair just once, and now people keep mistaking me for some hoe I can't even bother to care about. Show some respect, lass."

At this, the two of them slumped in relief. Good, this was just a misunderstanding. She was just some random girl who happened to dye her hair a particular color. Besides, he could clearly compare her with Theodora now: she had a thick Irish accent that Theodora definitely didn't have.

But now that he thought of it...

"We don't allow girls, cootie protocols." Disarray answered, right as Chaos thought up of a reply. He shot him a dirty look. "General! Don't be rude!" The girl nodded along, saying "Yeah, and you really don't wanna turn me down. You're gonna need me."

"Yeah, what she sai- Wait, what?" Chaos agreed, before stopping in his tracks. His eyes flitted over to her. "What did you just say?"

"I'll repeat it again, mistah." she said, then leaned over and poked him in between pauses:

"You're. Gonna. Need. Me. Got that in, already?"

Disarray frowned. "Nice try, lady," he sneered, "but like I said: we don't allow girls!"

"Would you allow me in if I can do this?" she asked, lifting a hand. Before either of them could say anything, she twirled around counter-clockwise, her hand trailing behind her. Following the hand was a trail of scarlet flames, curling around her and forming a perfect circle. She then lifted both arms swiftly, and the flames became a pillar that burst straight up into the sky, scorching any birds that happened to be passing by overhead, and creating a circle in the clouds.

General Disarray and Professor Chaos stared in shock, mouths wide enough to swallow boulders as the spectacular sight lasted for about ten seconds before the flames abruptly disappeared. In the center, completely unharmed, was the girl panting, the tiniest sheen of sweat on her cheeks. The ground beneath her was reduced to boiling concrete, which didn't seem to harm her at all. As the two of them watched, still feeling the heat of her fire, she casually stepped out of the circle and smiled. "Am I in yet?"

VVV

Tonight was the night. The big night she would make her face known to the forces of Chaos. Every inch of her body, tough not quite evident on the outside, was secretly trembling with anticipation. Her flames, now that they have been used for more spectacular feats of power, rushed throughout her entire nervous system, just begging to show their face to the world again, to rush through the air and show off their destructive beauty.

Fire Hazard took as deep breath as she stepped through the entrance to the lair of Professor Chaos for her internship.

Two Chaos minions, both Mexican immigrants, guarded the elevator doors going to the real spectacle: the true lair of Chaos himself. As expected, she was halted by them for inspection. "Business, seńorita?" one of them asked in halting English.

She raised an eyebrow and her left arm immediately burst into flames. The two minions' eyes opened as the fire died down almost as quickly as they had come, showing no damage at all to herself. The other minion pressed a button and the doors squealed open, showing an empty lift cart behind.

"Muchas gracias, señores bueno idiota," she acknowledged, giving them both a nod as she walked in. All they could do was watch her nervously as she pressed the down button and the doors slid shut.

It took her no less than two minutes when the doors slid open again, this time to a grander sight than above. The main lobby of the lair was probably wide enough for an aquarium to sit inside comfortably, with catwalks entangling themselves high above her head and platforms containing various valuables for crimes scattered around. Minions were also everywhere, running around with packages, making calls, taking breaks, and doing what minions did.

She coughed loudly into her fist. No results. Not even one peep.

She coughed louder, this time shooting out a jet of flames from her fist when she did so.

That got their attentions, and they all stopped within their tracks. Everyone was silent. So silent, you could wave your arm and make it seem noisy.

She looked at them all, slowly scanning the room. "... Does anyone know where I'm s'possed to see the Professor?"

At that, all the lights turned off, sending the room into pitch black nothingness. She frowned. 'This wasn't part of the plan,' she thought nervously.

Suddenly, a crackling laugh boomed over unseen speakers, possibly hidden in the darkness. ""So, it seems like the little firecracker managed to find her courage on the way in!"" Chaos' voice sneered, reverberating throughout the room. "Uh, yeah, because those security protocols of yours are fucking broken, mate," she yelled, cupping her hands over her mouth, "ya need to get more competent guards!"

""That was what you only saw on the surface,"" he explained, ""but had you been lying to them, you would have been pulverized like a raisin by all the other traps!""

She sighed. He was clearly bluffing himself. "And if those traps were in the upper floor, why didn't I see any cameras tracking me?"

Silence. Radio silence for a few seconds. Then the speakers crackled again. ""I-er- Enough!"" he yelled, feedback squealing throughout the room. ""You said you would prove your worth here, and we've devised the perfect plan to see if you're as impressive as your claims!""

"Didn't I just-" Fire Hazard started to say, but before she could say anything further, the screeching roar of gears churning shook the room. Though she couldn't see anything, she could clearly hear the sounds of crates falling over and minions yelping, as well as their retreating footsteps. 'Pussies,' she thought, even though she herself didn't have a good feeling about this scenario.

""Let's see your hellfire save you now,"" Professor Chaos' voice cackled, barely drowning out the earsplitting churns, ""from our latest little pet!""

'Pet?' she thought. 'Pets can cute. Lets just hope it's the cute type he's talking about.'

Her hopes were shattered as a blindingly white spotlight burst on, and she saw that she was trapped in a pit with something decidedly not cute.

A behemoth of a Sixth Grader was chained to the floor, roaring and farting out throughout the various buttcheeks that peppered his body. As her eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness, she could see that he was more monster than human. His arms were sickeningly muscular, bulging through the remains of a tattered shirt, and while his legs weren't as inappropriately large as the arms, they were also riddled with butts and muscle. As he let out a roar that competed with the grinding gears that had now gone, she could see his yellowed teeth were dangerously sharp, almost like a rabid dog.

"You've got to be kidding me," she muttered, thankful that nobody could clearly see her fingers twitching. She looked around, realizing with a sense of dread that the grinding noises was the floor sinking down and the platform where the mutant was chained on rising up. She looked up and saw hordes of minions, all laughing and raring for a fight between the two forces. The walls were slick with oil, both of the cooking variety and the mechanical, but both of them equally efficient for slipping on. The elevator was also hanging above her, just barely out of reach. "You've got to be kidding me!"

Chaos' laugh rang around again, booming over those of the minions. ""Not so confident now, aren't cha?""

Overwhelming panic took over her, leaving her incapable of anything but shivering. Her mind raced with various depictions of her death by the mutant. What did she just get herself into?

Then, like an island bobbing above a sea of despair, she had an idea.

"Wait... oily walls... stuff in pockets... fleshy opponent..."

That was all it took for her to regain control of the situation. She started chuckling silently, which turned into genuine laughter (complete with the occasional snort), which turned into crazed cackling that surprised the minions into silence. Even the Sixth Grader behemoth stopped roaring and was looking at her, feeling what seemed to be a hint of concern as she clutched her sides, laughing so wickedly one couldn't help but wonder if she needed to see a doctor.

Finally, she contained her laughter and was just a twitching mass of humanoid girl, still smiling and still clutching her side, gasping for air.

""... Um, what was that?"" the Professor asked, confusion evident in his voice. She stood shakily, looked up at the millions of faces peering in, managed to find a CCTV camera staring down at her, and said to it: "You've really got to be kidding me."

One of the minions shrugged. "He isn't," he said, and pressed a button on the remote he was holding.

The chains loosened their hold on the mutant, and he broke loose from his restraints. He let out another deafening roar and the masses started cheering again, and he barreled towards her. She responded in turn by running at him, then as soon as they were both within hitting contact of each other, she slid under him and punched what she hoped was the bulge in his pants. He roared again, this time in pain, and she got up swiftly.

The behemoth mutant clutched its genitals for a moment, then managed to get its shit together and charged at her again. She cracked her knuckles, then as soon as he came close again she stuck out her hands and pushed against his head. The force of his charge, plus her choosing to jump forward, resulted in her catapulting herself above him, and he failed to notice that he was about to-

CRCKH, was the sound of his skull slamming against the oily concrete wall. He bellowed and the minions realized that Fire Hazard had just begun tipping the scales in her favor.

She took off her jacket and ran to the nearest wall, and was soaking it with greasy oil just as she heard the roars again of the beast. She sidestepped, so he would just barely miss her and slammed face first into the wall, and she sprung up onto his back and held on, clutching on tightly to her now dirtied jacket. The mutant snorted, looking around the pit for her but not realizing her swinging from his (thankfully butt-free) back. She took this as an opportunity to sling the jacket around his neck and start choking him with it. He roared, skidding around as he attempted to wrestle both her and the jacket off him, but his fingers were too beefy and she held on with vigor. 'Thank God for making Sixth Graders abso-fucking-lutely stupid!' she praised the Lord silently, not quite remembering that she was an atheist and that God would be confused when her message popped up on his voice mail.

"Just try me and your neck gets scalded!" she threatened him, but the mutant didn't listen to her and continued trying to claw her off. She sighed dramatically and willed her hands to combust, resulting in the greasy jacket bursting into flames. The mutant howled madly and shook her off, and she tumbled towards a corner of the pit. As she got up and brushed off the dust from her hair, he shook around until the flaming jacket peeled off and died down to a smoldering crisp. He turned to her with a murderous gleam in his eyes, a scalding hot burn mark on his thick neck.

"That's what you get for not listening!" she yelled, and blew him a raspberry. He roared once more, and as he ran towards her, fists pounding against the concrete floor like a gorilla's, she pulled out a tiny bottle of rubbing alcohol from her wild mane of hair (thank the Lord for bushy hair!), and threw it at him. She threw a fireball after it so that as soon as the alcohol bottle had stuck itself in one of the mutant's buttcheeks, the fireball turned it into a bomb- which exploded immediately and tore apart almost half of the mutant's body.

Everyone was silent. They could only watch as the once fearsome beast's form lay twitching on the floor, the remains of his body's right side either chunks of burnt meat scattered throughout the pit or exposed to the cold air, still sizzling as the flames of the explosion slowly cooked his insides away.

Fire Hazard walked over to the remaining chains the mutant was previously held in, and pulled them free from their anchors quite easily, seeing as they were already stressed from the mutant's constant tugging. She then calmly walked over to the mutant, wrapping one end of the chain around her palm. She stopped as soon as her feet were directly in front of his face, and he weakly turned to see her cold expression.

She tilted her head to one side. "Y'know," she admitted, "you nearly had me by my nonexistent nutsack there, buddy."

The mutant whimpered, as if he knew what she was going to do next.

A sadistic smile grew on her face, making her seem almost demonic. "Almost."

Her arm flew up, the chain now a glowing red, and swiftly jolted it downwards.

They continued watching with horror, unable to do anything as she whipped the beast more and more, the chain glowing warmer and warmer. Each groan of protest readily became more quiet with each whipping, until they were no more.

She lifter her arm up again, ready for the umpteenth round of whippings, when the speakers squealed on. ""Stop it!"" Professor Chaos screamed, fear lacing his voice, ""Please! We'll let you in now, promise!""

"Awww," she whined, stepping away from the mutilated corpse, "but I was starting to have some fun!"

VVV

"Can't believe we let that crazy bitch in," Minion #1066 muttered as he wasted his time in the breakroom.

"Tell me about it," another minion, #0382, agreed, bringing along with him two cups of hot chocolate. "Here's yours, by the way."

#1066 sighed. "Thanks," he said, taking it and drinking a sip. He put it down and stared out of the window, looking at the small shape of a red-haired girl running about. "Y'know," he started, "she got me and a few of the other fellows worried."

"Whaddya mean?" #0382 asked, and #1066 frowned at him. "I mean," he sighed again, "she's only been here for a few days and she's already assigned the position of Supervising Manager, and unless she's just a favorite of the boss there's something not adding up here."

"You've got a point there," he mused, and the other aimed a finger gun at him. "That's exactly my point. What if she has some ulterior motive to this whole thing? What if-"

BWAAAAA, and the wailing of the alarm horns blared across the breakroom, some minions falling off the couches mid-nap. ""A'igt, you lazy bastards!"" Fire Hazard's voice boomed from the speakers, ""Breaktime's over! Get yo asses up before y'all get a whippin'!""

"That whore's going to be the death of us," #1066 groaned, and the speakers squealed again. ""Minions #1066 and #0382, don't think that I don't know you're talkin' shit 'bout me. Go back to work or I'm squealin to Chaos on the both of ya!""

The two minions gave each other a look. Oh, boy, would she be a ride.


End file.
